How easy is it for the audience to detect our nerves? Does the audience really care? And why do we care so much about looking nervous?

Iask my clients to complete a pre-course questionnaire before they start one of courses and most of them say that they are worried about looking nervous in front of an audience. Many of them are also worried about sounding nervous – having a ‘shaky voice’ is a very common concern.

Presenting to an audience can be intimidating because it feels unnatural. We are used to interactive conversations where we get immediate verbal and non-verbal feedback. But when we present to an audience, it can feel like a one-way experience. All eyes are on us and we are often looking at blank faces. In fact, one theory about why we fear public speaking is that it has an evolutionary basis and we perceive the audience as the predator! (See my recent article on this and other theories about why we fear public speaking.)

Sometimes people do have to present to ‘hostile’ or indifferent audiences. But usually our audiences are  easy to please if we give them what they want. More often than not the main thing they are looking for is connection. The great news is that establishing connection will also make you feel more relaxed.
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Connecting with your audience helps you “get out of your own head” as you realise that it’s not all about you. Approaching a presentation in the mindset of “How can I best serve my audience?” rather than “what will they think of me?” is empowering.
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Most public speaking coaches agree that the old advice to imagine your audience as naked is the worst advice that you can give someone because it creates the barrier between you and your audience!
So here are nine things you can try instead. 

With Halloween upon us, I thought it was timely to look at why a fear of public speaking is so common! 

My Toastmasters Club, Talking Heads, has a Mark Twain quote on our website, "There are two types of speakers - those that are nervous and those that are liars". 

Recently the Atlantic reported that a tweet posted by a 15-year old high-school student “Stop forcing students to present in front of the class and give them a choice not too”, had gone viral, as had as similar tweet posted earlier this year.

Some students are concerned that forcing them to present in front of their peers, can fuel their anxiety and have long-term harmful effects. Some of the tweets suggested it was a mental health issue, and that people suffering from anxiety should be given alternatives. They also say that students are being unfairly penalised by receiving poor grades for presenting badly when their content is good.

People who are nervous about public speaking are sometimes put off doing public speaking courses because they don’t want to do impromptu speaking. Impromptu speaking, or table topics as it is known in Toastmasters, requires the participant to respond to random topics with no preparation. For example, you might be asked “what is the best advice you have ever had?” or “if you could time travel, what year would you chose to travel to?” Or you might be asked to give your opinion on a topical issue such as, “should we ban plastic water bottles?”.   

When I ask a group of people if they have ever had to talk to a group about something they didn’t understand or were not convinced about themselves I usually get a lot of nods. Then I ask them how they felt about it. They say things like ‘I felt uncomfortable.’ ‘I felt like a fraud.’ ‘I felt like people were going to challenge me and I wouldn’t be able to respond.’ ‘I was scared I would get found out.’
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Perhaps you are a team leader or mid-level manager and you work for a company who has just adopted a new vision and values. You have heard senior management explain it and put a great story around it and now it’s your turn to present it to your team. Suddenly you feel very uncomfortable. How are you going to explain it when you still have lots of questions yourself? Fearing your content is not helpful and can really undermine your confidence. 

(Updated February 2020)
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to stand in front of an audience and feel calm? Actually, no! While it might be nice to feel calm, the reality is that you generally perform better when you are a bit nervous.

Imagine you are an Olympic athlete turning up to the start of a race. Do you think that you will feel calm? Of course not. You will be very nervous and rightly so. Once more those nerves will serve you well as they mean your body is producing adrenalin that will make you run faster.

When it comes to public speaking something similar applies. If you are calm the chances are that you will come across as laid back but not particularly effective or dynamic. However, with presenting, being very nervous doesn’t serve you well either. When you start to show visible signs of fear such as shaking, sweating, or going red, you become focused on what is happening to you rather than what you are saying, to the detriment of your performance. 
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What you want is to hit that sweet spot, where a bit of nervousness gives you optimal performance. Remember that those nerves are a sign that your body is preparing to perform. You want enough adrenalin to enhance your performance but not so much that it starts to undermine it.  I recently learned that the Yerkes-Dobson Law explains this relationship between stress and performance and the corresponding 'inverted U' graph. 

Many years ago, I did a public speaking course through work. At the end of the course we each gave a speech which was filmed. We were given the video to review in our own time. I was really unhappy with my speech because at one point I lost my way and hesitated for what felt like an eternity.  ​